Shooting Star
by ennaxxor
Summary: In the future will you wait for me? Years later Keely looks back on her relationship with Phil, and forward towards her future. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Phil of the Future, the song Shooting Star, or anything else you may recognize.

**A/N: **So this is a one-shot, inspired by a campfire song called Shooting Star (lyrics to which are at the end of the fic). I also borrowed a plot idea from the book The Amber Spyglass (by Philip Pullman) - if you've read the book, you should easily recognize it. If you haven't read the book, well, I don't want to specifiy what I borrowed and spoil it. I hope you enjoy, and please leave a review to let me know what you think.

This contains spoilers for the final episode of PotF, on the off chance anyone hasn't seen it yet.

* * *

Keely looked up at the sky, amazed as always at how many stars there were scattered along the horizon. She was only a fifteen minute drive out of Pickford, but those fifteen minutes made a world of a difference. Though Pickford wasn't a very large town, it was still refreshing to get out of the traffic and lights and sit in silence, the only sound being the wind rustling through the leaves. Many times before she had sat there with Phil, discussing everything from the 22nd century to the new outfit she had her eyes on at the mall, but now she sat alone. 

She readjusted herself against her favorite tree, settling in for a long stay. While she gazed upwards a shooting stay flew across the sky, causing her eyes to widen in surprise. No matter how many shooting stars she'd seen, she never tired of seeing another. Keely remembered another night many years ago, when Phil had ridiculed her for wishing on a shooting star.

"It's a falling rock," he had said, "What's so special about it?"

Keely rolled her eyes.

"Maybe in the future shooting stars don't matter, but at this point in time people are quite fond of them."

Phil laughed, his breath tickling Keely's neck as she leaned back against him.

"Do whatever you want, wish on the rock if it's that special."

"I will," Keely said, and she wished that that moment would never end, that she would sit there forever with Phil. As it turned out she might as well have wished on one of the rocks on the ground, because her wish certainly never came true.

Keely now held her breath, internally debating whether or not she should make a wish on this one. Part of her knew exactly what she would like to wish for, but her other half knew making that wish would go against what she was there for in the first place. Besides, nothing would bring Phil back, shooting star or not.

She thought about the star, appearing out of nowhere to shine brightly, only to vanish soon after. No one knew when one would come, and when they appeared they never lasted long enough. Before you could begin to fully appreciate its beauty it was gone, leaving you with only a memory, and perhaps a faint shadow in the sky to show its path.

Phil had been her shooting star.

Keely closed her eyes and tried to imagine Phil's arms around her. Before he'd left, they agreed that every year on that date, they would both go outside and sit under the stars. It wasn't much, but it allowed Keely to feel closer to Phil for a while. Though he wouldn't be born for another hundred years, she knew as she sat there, he _was_ in the future, in some other dimension of time. It gave her comfort to know they were both sitting under the same stars, the same sky. The world around them changed with time, but the heavens were eternal.

At least, she hoped Phil was sitting under the stars in the future. Keely pulled her knees closer to her body and hugged them, wondering if Phil even still honored their tradition. It had been six years, after all. She was now nearly a college graduate, far from the young girl she'd been when she first met Phil. Yet regardless of how much time passed she'd never be able to forget him.

But she had to move on. No matter how much Phil had meant to her, she couldn't continue to live in the past. She wouldn't let herself go day to day thinking of distant memories, and she knew it wasn't what Phil had wanted for her either. Keely looked at her left hand and smiled as the faint moonlight danced off her diamond ring.

He wasn't Phil, but no one could ever be, and Keely knew better than to compare anyone to Phil. Phil had been her first love, and had taken a part of her heart no one could replace, but she wasn't looking for a replacement. She was happy again, and she was in love, something she'd never thought would happen again after Phil left. But before she could fully move on into her future, she had to let go of the past.

"I'm getting married, Phil," she whispered into the still air. The logical part of her brain knew that Phil couldn't hear her, yet she spoke aloud anyway, letting her words float into the dark. "Not soon, we're waiting until we've graduated, but before next year." She paused, then gave a short chuckle, "Looks like the Giggle was right after all. I'm on my way to being married, I've got a great internship right now at the local news station…"

The day she'd caught a glimpse of her future had remained fixed in her memory over the years. She could still recall the rush when she spotted the ring on her left hand, the hope buried deep inside that it was Phil who had placed it there. How, when they decided to be a couple, she truly believed everything was falling into place. How all her plans had crumbled not too long after.

Even then, she still kept hope. She _had _to end up with Phil. He didn't just happen to land in Pickford in 2003, it must have been fate. They were born over a hundred years apart, she refused to believe their meeting was pure chance.

"_In the future will you wait for me?"_

She knows now how naïve she had been. It would have been unfair to both of them, spending their lives waiting for each other, considering the harsh reality that their paths were unlikely to cross again.

But their paths did cross, one final time after, when the Diffys returned for Curtis. It was fate (again, she refused to think of it as by chance) that Keely took the long way walking home from school, and saw the familiar RV parked once again in front of the house.

The Diffys stayed one more night, as leaving before then would only get them stuck in the traffic Lloyd was so eager to avoid, and Phil and Keely spent their last night talking under the stars.

They laid on their backs on the grass, and for a while pretended to forget that these were possibly their final few hours together, talking as if they normally would. They discussed the quiz that Mr. Hackett had very strongly hinted they would have the next day, Owen's latest attempt to ask Via out, and Via's (unconvincing) protest that Owen was the last boy in the school she would consider dating.

It was during a lull in the conversation that Keely asked Phil something that had been on her mind recently, ever since the Turn Around dance when she realized the Diffys really could be gone anytime with hardly any notice.

"Have you ever used the Giggle to look up your future?" she questioned, turning her head to better see him.

Though his face still was towards the sky, in the dark Keely could still see his expression change to a slight frown.

"The Giggle is updated automatically to have accurate information every second," he said carefully. "Back home it was great for research, but nothing more than that. We only saw your future because, from the Giggle's perspective, it was in the past."

"You didn't answer my question."

Phil stayed silent for a while, and Keely wondered if he was simply going to ignore her. She knew what she'd been talking about when she asked, she wanted to know if he'd ever tried looking up his future in her time, not his. She also knew that _he_ knew what she was asking as well, and his "answer" was just an attempt to avoid giving a real response.

"I did," he finally said, turning to face her. "Last night, actually. I tried searching for me in 2030..." His eyes darted away as he said the year, and Keely's heart leapt, instantly recognizing the significance of the year.

"And?" she asked hopefully,

"I wasn't there," he said in a hollow voice, his eyes still not meeting hers.

Keely turned her head away and blinked, hoping to stop the tears before they had a chance to fall. Phil was returning to the future, but that meant he was leaving _her_ future, and that was the one she most wanted him to be in.

"We can change it, Keels," he said in a more hopeful voice than the one he'd been using seconds before. "Remember you and the cats? That wasn't set in stone, neither is this, nothing is."

Keely just shook her head, the reality of everything crashing down on her at once.

"You can't wait for me," she said, keenly aware of the tear that was now falling down her right cheek.

"Of course I can!" he argued, sitting up and pulling Keely with him. "Besides, technically I won't really be waiting. I go back to the future, and by then you'll be there too."

"No, Phil," she said desperately, trying to make him see her point. "You were right earlier, even if I live that long, I'll be 'really, really old.' I mean, no one lives that long anyways, I'd be, I'd be…" She frowned, trying to do the math mentally, cursing the fact she still had trouble with it.

"One hundred and forty-one," Phil solemnly finished for her. "But, if I were to come back here in the time machine, none of that would matter!"

Keely raised her eyebrows.

"And what about the, 'Thanks to the Diffys' law?" she asked, referencing the new law the family had mentioned to her earlier that evening.

"We already broke it by coming back for Curtis," Phil said with a shrug. "I'm sure I'd be able to figure out a way to come back again."

"Are you really sure?" Keely pressed. "Because I don't want to live my life waiting for something that will never happen. I don't want you to live like that either. Both of us deserve better."

"I can't make any promises," Phil said with a sigh, knowing full well of the security and police force of the future.

"Maybe we were born in different times for a reason," Keely said carefully, looking down to avoid his gaze. "According to the Giggle, I'm married in 2030, and you're not there." Putting reality into words caused her heart to break, but there was nothing she could do about it. "I'm sorry if this all sounds like I'm just looking for an excuse to break this off between us, because I really do love you, but looking at the facts I just don't see how we can keep it going."

"You love me?"

Keely looked up at his question, suddenly startled and insecure.

"Well, you're my best friend, I mean, I've known you for, so of course--"

"I love you too."

A large smile spread across Keely's face as she heard the words she'd never thought she'd hear from Phil, but her joy came crashing down the next second as she remembered their situation.

"Some timing we've got, huh?" She shook her head, and tried to wipe away her tears. "Too bad we couldn't have realized this all earlier."

Keely flopped back onto her back, and Phil slowly followed suite. Neither spoke, neither knowing what to say.

"I love you," Phil said after tortuous minutes of silence.

"Phil -- "

"No, let me finish. I love you, and I want you to be happy. You won't be happy if you live your life alone, waiting for what may never happen, waiting for me."

"I want you to be happy too," Keely said quietly. It caused her pain to think that it would be someone else making him happy, but it was worse to think of Phil miserable. If they had to be apart, shouldn't they try to make the best of it?

"Just don't forget me," Phil added, his voice slightly stronger. "I know you'll have your own life, probably your own family… just, don't forget me."

Keely closed her eyes in an attempt to prevent more tears from falling. They came anyway.

"I could never forget you, Phil. I was afraid you'd forget me. I mean, you'll be back in the future, back to your old life before you met me."

"Not going to happen," Phil insisted. He reached over to take her hand and rubbed it gently with his thumb, calming her. She opened her eyes and looked up at the stars once again.

"We should do this every year," she said. "On our own, every year on this date, lay down under the stars. Just to help us remember, you know?" She instantly felt silly for suggesting an idea, but was reassured when he smiled.

"I'd like that."

They stayed up the rest of the night, talking about everything they could, stretching out the hours to milk the remaining time for all that they could. Keely knew she'd be dead tired in school the next day, but that didn't matter. At this point, nothing else mattered.

Years later Keely had forgotten exactly how the decision was made, who brought it up, how long it was debated. But by the time dawn broke it had been finalized: Once Phil arrived in the future, he wasn't going to attempt to return to her. It was the only way they would be able to move on, and not wonder what-if the rest of their lives.

Keely still believed it was more than luck that brought them together. They'd fit so well together, it had to be. Phil had given her confidence in herself. He taught her how to be a better friend. She couldn't imagine where she'd be now if she'd never met him.

Well she wouldn't be sitting out under the stars, for one thing. She wouldn't be talking to someone who had no way of hearing what she was saying, someone who technically didn't exist yet.

"He's a good guy, Phil," she continued, smiling as she looked at the ring on her finger. It was the same ring she'd seen on the Giggle screen, all those years ago. Unlike then, she now knew that it wasn't Phil who presented the ring to her, but she was okay with it. In fact, she was more than okay. Just like how she hadn't been able to imagine life without Phil, she now couldn't imagine life without her fiancé.

"I'm happy," she said, looking up at the stars. "I hope you're happy too. I hope you found someone to make you happy." It still surprised her how easily she could say it now, how much she meant it, how little it hurt.

"I'll still keep up our tradition, though, don't worry. I won't forget you. Not that I need to come here to remember, I always remember, but I'll keep coming anyways." Keely chuckled, realizing she was rambling.

Another shooting star grazed the sky, but for once Keely didn't make a wish. She had everything she wanted.

_Please won't you catch a shooting star for me  
__And take it with you on your way  
__Though it seems that we've just met, you're the one I won't forget  
__Hope some kind wind blows you back my way_

_And I was thinking maybe somewhere later down the road  
__After all our stories have been told  
__I'll sit and think of you, the dear friend I once knew  
__Shot through my life on a shooting star_

_Sometimes I know that a part of you will show  
__Deep in my eyes or in my smile  
__There'll always be a part of you deep inside my heart  
__And I'll know just when to let it go_

_And I was thinking maybe somewhere later down the road  
__After all our stories have been told  
__I'll just and think of you, the dear friend I once knew  
__Shot through my life on a shooting star_


End file.
